wasn’t a joke and that this wasn’t a trick of her eyes.
Tessa began to shake, doubling over and gasping when she felt Serena catch her and someone else grab hold to her arms.
“Take slow breaths, Tessa,” Serena said softly.
“It’ll pass.”
The panic attack was almost violent and Tessa had half a mind to burst into a run and escape anywhere, but this place…
Suddenly, the door opened again and when the women turned around, Tessa saw Yana, smiling at them and holding on to Kanako, Kino’s sister. The woman’s eyes were wide and dazed but brightened when they landed on her sister.
“Kanako!” Kino exclaimed, rushing past them to yank her sister into her arms and away from Yana.
Suddenly, she spoke and her voice was rushing in Japanese. Tessa couldn’t understand what they said and she wanted to ignore them. Instead, Serena pulled her close to whisper in her ear.
“Play along.” Shalea and the redhead moved closer to the other women, bringing her in warm hugs that made them appear as though they were related, which was ridiculous, considering they were hardly even friends.
Sure enough, time passed and Tessa came to realize that that all the women taken from the room had been abducted.
Recovered from her panic attack, Tessa found herself pacing over the strange couches and chairs set up for the women to sit.
Shalea remained standing like Tessa, leaning against one of the arches and glaring at the sky outside.
“Alright, we have to at least know where we are.” Tessa said after some time pacing.
“Did you guys find out anything?”
The women shook their heads. “We asked,” Serena began, hugging to a woman named Celia. Celia’s olive skin looked pale and sickly, she wasn’t doing so well.
“But they only told us we’d know in time.”
“Seriously?” Tessa snapped.
“That we’d know in time? Ugh this is such bullshit.”
“Obviously,” Kino grunted. Her sister said something in Japanese, and when Kino looked back, she was rolling her eyes and replying.
“Okay can we just speak in English?” Shalea asked with a deep frown.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to make our cover any less fake.”
“That’s another thing,” Tessa piped in, ignoring Kino’s careless shrug and Shalea’s grunt of annoyance.
“Why sisters? Do they honestly think we’re related?”
“Yana does,” Shalea replied, crossing her arms.
“It was the first thing he told me. That I’d be alright, that I’m safe, and that ‘my sisters’ would be awake to join me soon. Honestly, I thought that meant I was going to get eaten or something.”
“I was brought here after Kino,” Serena explained.
“Then when Franciska was brought here, we decided it would be a good idea to pretend we were all sisters. It would make sense to just play along instead of trying to alienate one another.”
Franciska, the redhead, shifted in her seat, wrapping her arms around her legs.
“It’s a shit idea, but we got no other option. We’re better off trying to survive together than alone anyway.”
Tessa sighed, but understood.
“Yeah but don’t you guys think they’ll notice we aren’t related? We don’t exactly look alike.”
“So?” Kino pointed out.
“They’re aliens, it’s not like they can tell. As far as I know, they may think we do look alike. They probably think it is normal for siblings to speak in different languages too.”
“It’s fine,” Kanako sighed, her accent thick.
“I need to practice anyway.” Kino replied harshly in Japanese, but Kanako smiled in reply.
“So we’re all here?” Tessa asked.
Shalea nodded.
“Only eight of us were taken, and eight of us are here.”
Tessa let out a slow breath before looking at all of the women watching her.
“What is it?”
“Just wondering if you’ve got a plan,” Serena said with a small smile. Tessa floundered.
“Me? Why me?”
“You did figure out the thing with the messed up time when we were back on